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‘Poseidon’ tops the original ‘Adventure’
Poor Poseidon. Box office pundits have declared it dead in the water even before the ship has left port.
If moviegoers really do avoid this film in droves, that will be a shame. They will have missed a thrilling disaster flick that actually tops the original Poseidon Adventure.
Director Wolfgang Petersen’s new movie wastes very little time introducing characters before a colossal rogue wave capsizes a luxury liner on New Year’s Eve. Many critics have said this lack of characterization hurts the film, because they don’t care about the victims enough.
Have they seen the original lately?
It was one of the better disaster films of the 70s (not that it’s saying much), but you wouldn’t know it watching the first 30 minutes. The opening scenes are dreadful, spending way too much time on silly characters that aren’t meant to be more than paper thin.
Petersen is wise enough to know the action is the main attraction here, so in editing, he cut back on exposition, preferring to let us get to know the characters through how they try to escape the ship, which is sinking – not the case in the original.
It’s a spare approach, but it’s all the movie needs. This way, Poseidon swims along forcefully in a brisk 90-some minutes, mostly avoiding the bloated overkill that has sunk many a summer blockbuster.
The characters may not be particularly deep, but a charismatic cast wrapped me up in their plights anyway. This movie is not strictly a Poseidon Adventure remake, but takes the same story and populates it with a different mix of unfortunate travelers.
Josh Lucas and Kurt Russell hold the screen well as the heroes of the piece, and it’s fun to see Richard Dreyfuss endure watery peril again, as he did in Jaws. Emmy Rossum is charming as usual playing Russell’s daughter. She’s a veteran of disaster movies, having starred in both The Day After Tomorrow and Phantom of the Opera.
Poseidon betters The Day After Tomorrow for two reasons. First, it doesn’t take itself too seriously, as Day After did when it foolishly tried to make sort of a statement about global warming but didn’t have the brains for it.
Second, Petersen (In the Line of Fire, The Perfect Storm) is flat out a better action director than Roland Emmerich.
Petersen stages many a hair-raising moment, such as a harrowing escape from the lobby of the Poseidon, which has both rising water and a raging oil fire. Claustrophobes everywhere will recoil at the site of our heroes crawling through vents as the water threatens to drown them.
He only goes too far at the end, with the kind of “extra� shock that horror movies have worn out for years. Otherwise, Petersen has given us one of the joys of summer. The well-mounted B-movie. Or in this case, a B+ movie.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Reviews
Comments
By Kelle
May 13, 2006 7:16 PM | Link to this
I have been anxiously awaiting the release of this movie ever since I saw a teaser trailer some time ago. Admittedly a disaster movie junkie, it doesn’t mean that I cannot disseminate between the painfully cheesy ones and thoroughly entertaining ones. This movie? Sir Critic gives it a B+. If it were up to me, I would probably edge that up to an A. In order to be an “A� disaster flick for me a couple of things have to happen. First, my hands have got to land on my face somewhere. Odd? During highly tense movie moments I tend to touch my face when I’m anxious. Second, the tears. I know, dorky, but tears usually accompany a well written disaster movie. Both of these things happened this afternoon. In addition, it needs a hunky hero and gorgeous lady in distress. This movie had that times two. I would recommend it to anyone.